‘Amazing Spider-Man': Rhys Ifans Talks The Lizard & Spidey

So far there’s been a lot more discussion about how The Amazing Spider-Man will differ from Sam Raimi’s movie trilogy about the webslinger – and less about how the two may be alike.

According to Rhys Ifans, who’s playing Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard in the Spidey reboot, one quality the two will share is having a villain who’s less evil incarnate, and more of a flawed character.

Some fans have complained about how Raimi’s Spider-Man flicks never really featured a “pure” villain; instead, the antagonists were always a flawed figure who was corrupted by the darker side of ambition – or whose evil actions were inspired by some tragic event(s) in their past. So there’s been some question as to whether or not Amazing Spider-Man‘s version of The Lizard would be (or not be) more of a black-and-white opponent for Peter Parker.

In an interview with Hero Complex, Ifans had the following to say about his version of Dr. Connors in The Amazing Spider-Man:

“Absolutely, Curt Connors is by no stretch an evil villain. He’s not like the Batman villains, like the Joker, who are the embodiment of evil. Curtis Connors is a great man who makes a bad decision. That’s the whole magic of the Spider-Man idea. These people are the embodiment of our flaws and our desires that lead to tragedy. Curt Connors is a man with one arm and he wants to grow his arm back. He has access to a science that can enable that. But he has to make a moral decision, an ethical decision, to achieve that. In a story both he and Peter Parker are presented with these amazing abilities, and it’s about this gift that life gives us. More than any other super-hero, Spider-Man presents us with something very local in its ethics. It’s not messianic. It’s far more tangible. He is, again, a working-class hero.”

Those of you who prefer the bad guys in comic book movies to not be of the bleeding heart variety… well, The Amazing Spider-Man probably won’t give you what you’re looking for. Then again, Spider-Man villains in general have a history of being more on the ambiguous side of the moral divide, so this news shouldn’t be all that shocking.

As mentioned before, the Amazing Spider-Man creative team has gone on before about the film having a more naturalistic tone and being more grounded in style than Raimi’s movies. Ifans once again emphasized that point in his interview as well:

“… Not to be disparaging to the other movies at all but they were kind of going a certain way and [‘Amazing Spider-Man’ director Marc Webb] has rolled it back to its delicate, human domesticity. Spider-Man is a working-class hero. He’s an everyman. And I think Marc as a director and Andrew [Garfield] in his performances are doing special — we’re reclaiming the poetry of the hero and of the story.”

Spider-Man stories (be they in comic book, cartoon, or live-action film form) have always addressed the struggles of being a masked superhero, while also facing the difficulties of being a teenager making the transition into adulthood. It’s no surprise then that Ifans has confirmed that Amazing Spider-Man won’t break from that tradition:

“… It’s the human condition in flux — in physical flux but in moral and emotional flux as well. The teenage state, interestingly, is a state of flux too, it’s riddled with hormones and change, and Spider-Man more than any other hero is a metaphor for puberty.”